Russia Open To Restoring Relations With The Organisation of American States

Russia has stated it is open to reestablishing connections with the Organisation of American States (OAS) which it joined as an observer in 1992. Russia was suspended in April 2022 by the OAS Permanent Council, in moves lead by the United States. That decision was not multilateral with numerous Latin American countries voicing their disapproval. However, Russia’s new Ambassador to the United States, Alexander Darchiev, has also been tasked by Moscow to concurrently serve as Permanent Observer to the OAS.

Headquartered in Washington DC, the OAS is a multilateral regional body focused on human rights, electoral oversight, social and economic development, and security in the Western Hemisphere, and includes Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela, although the latter’s participation is currently disputed with calls for Venezuela to be suspended in 2022 failing to reach the required level of support. Cuba has been suspended since 1962 and Nicaragua since 2021.

There are an additional 75 permanent observer members including the four countries with territories in the Americas: Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The European Union and India are also permanent observers.

Over the years, Russia developed constructive relations with the OAS itself and its agencies, including the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE), and others. Moscow has indicated this week that it is open to restoring relations, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirming this interest via the Russian Foreign Ministry last week.

The OAS is holding an election to confirm a new President, currently held by Luis Almagro of Uruguay, on Monday, March 10.

The goal of the member nations in creating the OAS was “to achieve an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence.” Article 2 then defines eight essential purposes:

To strengthen the peace and security of the continent.
To promote and consolidate representative democracy, with due respect for the principle of non-intervention.
To prevent possible causes of difficulties and to ensure the pacific settlement of disputes that may arise among the member states.
To provide for common action on the part of those states in the event of aggression.
To seek the solution of political, judicial, and economic problems that may arise among them.
To promote, by cooperative action, their economic, social, and cultural development.
To eradicate extreme poverty, which constitutes an obstacle to the full democratic development of the peoples of the hemisphere.
To achieve an effective limitation of conventional weapons that will make it possible to devote the largest amount of resources to the economic and social development of the member states.

Over the course of the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, the return to democracy in Latin America, and the thrust toward globalization, the OAS made major efforts to reinvent itself to fit the new context. Its stated priorities now include the following:

Peace: Special OAS missions have supported peace processes in Nicaragua, Suriname, Haiti, and Guatemala. The Organization has played a leading part in the removal of landmines deployed in member states and it has led negotiations to resolve the continents’ remaining border disputes (Guatemala/Belize; Peru/Ecuador). Work is also underway on the construction of a common inter-American counter-terrorism front.

Free trade: The OAS is one of the three agencies currently engaged in drafting a treaty aiming to establish an inter-continental free trade area from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Fighting the Drugs Trade: The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission was established in 1986 to coordinate efforts and cross-border cooperation in this area.

Sustainable development: The goal of the OAS’s Inter-American Council for Integral Development is to promote economic development and combating poverty. OAS technical cooperation programs address such areas as river basin management, the conservation of biodiversity, preservation of cultural diversity, planning for global climate change, sustainable tourism, and natural disaster mitigation.